In the studio with Oliver Akers Douglas

By Celina Fox

02 August 2016

Why does an artist who paints landscapes in
the open air need a studio? 'I look on it as a holding bay', says
Oliver Akers Douglas, welcoming me to his space tucked into an old
dairy barn. Set in a farmyard surrounded by green fields and Red
Poll cattle, it was found through circulating neighbours after the
family moved to deepest rural Wiltshire five years ago.

Not only does it serve as parking place for his
canvases, but also for Oliver himself during the winter when he
cannot work outdoors. It has a large north-facing window which
gives a good general light for painting, and improvised screens
control how it falls on still-life subjects.

The only distraction he allows himself is the
radio: 'It is not where I rest up or live. If I'm slightly
uncomfortable it stops me wasting time.' He likes the fact he can
write or try out colours on the walls. The normal domestic rules do
not apply. He has never been a tidy painter and when he is
dissatisfied, he scrapes back the surface, so rags and paint cover
the floor.

From March to November, he heads out to
Fontmell Down or the Rushmore Estate in his Land Rover, which has
an easel attached to one side so he can paint big canvases on
location without their getting blown away. Umbrellas keep them out
of the sun. It works really well as a mobile studio, he says, even
if it looks a bit Heath Robinson. He loves painting the great chalk
uplands with their diaphanous quality of reflected light under
ever-changing skies. He uses a bright white ground as the
foundation to increase the transparency and vividness of the
colours. Having then drawn the subject on the foundation in red, he
wields a palette knife to apply the oil paint buttery thick, for he
loves its plasticity.

Back in the barn, canvases are stacked facing the wall for a
while. Any subsequent intervention is kept as clinical as possible,
for he loses confidence in the marks he makes and what he wants to
achieve when not in front of the scene. He is never quite sure when
a work is finished, but his dealers, the Portland Gallery, come
every two years and they want everything.